cannot be at once dismissed as
results of skilful prestidigitation.

In fact, it is evident to those who have taken the trouble to
investigate the question seriously, and who do not dismiss it with an _a
priori_ decision, that in addition to the fraudulent mediums who make it
their business to trick the public, and are ready to produce a new
marvel for every new dollar, and to call "spirits from the vasty deep"
of the unseen universe in form and shape to suit every customer, there
are some private and strictly honest mediums, and many phenomena which
no theory of conjuring will explain. To what they are due is another
question, in regard to which no hypothesis is here offered. It may be
said here, however, that the work of the Psychic Research Society has
demonstrated rather conclusively that certain hitherto unknown and
unsuspected powers and laws of nature do exist, and that man's five
senses are not the only means by which he gains a knowledge of what is
going on in other minds than his own. The facts of thought-transference,
of mesmeric control, of apparitions of the living, and the like, as
critically tested by the members of this society, seem to indicate
clearly that mind can affect, influence, and control mind through some
other channel than that of the senses, usually over short distances, but
in case of strong mental concentration over long distances. That some
psychic medium, some ethereal atmosphere, infiltrates our grosser
atmosphere, and is capable of conveying waves of thought as the
luminiferous ether conveys waves of light, is the theory advanced in
explanation of these phenomena. Spiritualists had long before advanced a
like theory in explanation of their phenomena, claiming that disembodied
as well as living minds have the power of influencing and controlling
other minds, through the agency of such a psychic atmosphere, and also
of acting upon and moving physical substances through a like agency. As
to the probability of all this, no opinion is here offered.

It is our purpose simply to select some of the more striking instances
of spiritualistic phenomena, as recorded by scientific observers. Those
placed on record by the numerous unscientific and unknown investigators
are not the kind of material to present to the general public.
Statements of an unusual character need to be thoroughly substantiated
before they can be accepted, and the remarkable phenomena adduced as
spiritual demand evidence of t